The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) today remarked that the appointment of a new defense secretary will not change its losing posture and failing war against the New People’s Army (NPA). The comment came after Ferdinand Marcos Jr announced yesterday his appointment of retired general Jose Faustino Jr as new secretary of the Department of National Defense (DND).

“General Faustino, like General Lorenzana and all his predecessors in the DND, will wage a losing and failing war against the NPA,” CPP Chief Information Officer Marco Valbuena pointed out.

Valbuena further said that his long stint in Mindanao from December 2018 to February 2021 as 10th ID Commander and later Eastern Mindanao Commander, then as head of the so-called Joint Task Force Mindanao, General Faustino failed to end the revolutionary forces in the island. “What more, that as he will have to contend with guerilla forces of the NPA deeply rooted and spread nationwide?”

“As a military commander, General Faustino was merciless in directing his armed troops to attack civilians and trample on their rights,” Valbuena said. “Like a true coward, he trained the guns and cannons of the military against the peasant and Lumad communities of Mindanao.”

Valbuena called Faustino as “among the worst of the fascist generals” of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) responsible for the brutal campaign of aerial bombings, extrajudicial killings and gross abuses of human rights in Mindanao, since it was placed under martial law in 2017.

The CPP Information Bureau has documented not less than 223 cases of aerial bombing, strafing and shelling by the AFP since 2017, 128 or 60% of which were carried out in various parts of Mindanao not including the five-month long bombardment of Marawi City in 2017 that left it in ruins.

According to Valbuena, behind the AFP’s fake numbers of “surrenders,” battlefield “victories” and “dismantled guerrilla fronts” being reported daily is the people’s seething outrage against endless military suppression and occupation of their communities.

Valbuena is confident that the NPA will “steadily expand and gain the broad support of the masses as they continue to defend the people with arms.” He added that no amount of US-supplied bombs, howitzers and bullets will stop the growth of the NPA.

“Despite all difficulties, the broad masses of peasants and minority people continue to build their organizations to fight the AFP and aggressors who are grabbing their land. Under the illegitimate Marcos II regime, people in great numbers are bound to wage resistance and join the people’s war,” he ended. (CPP Information Bureau)